No need to be, Lauchlin had told him. You passed the test.
The next day had gone by in a strange sort of haze. Kyel had gone back out into the yard with the other men and practiced with his bow until his arms were shaking. Part of him still wanted to deny Lauchlin’s words; it all seemed so far from reality that it just couldn’t possibly be true. But when he left the practice yard, one look back over his shoulder at his target made him admit that perhaps the mage had it right; all of his arrows had hit the mark.
Kyel hadn’t spoken to the man since. He wasn’t sure if Lauchlin had lost interest in him, or if he was just giving him time to sort it all out in his head. He’d had a few glimpses of the Sentinel about the keep, but the man seemed to be ignoring him. He kept to the tower most of the time and, from what Kyel could tell, he even took his meals up there. Kyel would see him staring down from atop the battlements occasionally, sometimes with Proctor at his side, sometimes not. Other times he seemed to just disappear. Kyel had no idea where the man went or what he was about, and really didn’t care. He had not yet been able to come to terms with his offer. He just wasn’t meant to be a mage. He didn’t have it in him.
“What are you going to do?” said a familiar, expectant voice.
He looked up, startled out of his thoughts.
“I don’t want to be a mage,” he said in answer. Then he blinked, realizing that the question had not been posed by the mysterious Sentinel, who wasn’t even there. Instead, he found Traver staring at him as if the man thought he’d lost his mind. They were all staring at him. Kyel fumbled with his cards, hastily discarding the lowest in his hand.
Traver came to his rescue. “Of course you don’t!” he grinned, clapping Kyel on the back and laughing as if he had just made the funniest joke in the world. “You’d make the saddest Blackcloak I’ve ever seen. You can hardly walk across the yard without tripping over your bowstring.”
The other men shifted uncomfortably as a long silence passed between them. Then Crawley burst into a throaty peal of laughter. “You’re good, Archer,” he said, slapping his leg with his hand. “That must be some hand you’ve got there. Forget it, then. I fold.”
He threw his cards down, chuckling and shaking his head. As he did, the other men in the circle looked at Kyel with a mixture of awkward humor and newfound respect. They all thought it was some kind of bluff. Everyone but Traver, who was throwing sharp glares his way while at the same time trying to be inconspicuous enough to play the whole thing off. Before he knew it, Kyel found that he’d won the entire pot. He raked his winnings in, unsure of what he was going to do with the diverse assortment of scraps.
“So, how did you come to be so good with the bow?” Nevon asked him as the next hand was being dealt.
Kyel shrugged, not knowing how to respond to the question. “Oh, I picked it up little by little,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on his cards. When he looked up again, he found Traver fixing him with a suspicious glare. Kyel threw his cards down on the stone floor and pushed himself up, grabbing his bow.
“Sorry,” he mumbled at the upturned faces that were staring at him. “I just...I’m no good at cards.”
With that, he turned and started walking off. But before he got five steps he heard Traver coming after him, telling his friends, “Sorry, gentlemen. Got to give Archer back his rock.”
Traver grabbed him by the arm, steering him away from the nodes of bored and idle men. He pressed the quartz crystal into Kyel’s hand then, leaning into him, murmured in his ear, “What’s the matter with you? I thought I told you to stay clear of that darkmage. He’s gotten to you, hasn’t he?”
“What do you mean?” Kyel shot back, earning himself a look of sharp reproach.
“Look. Everyone knows he’s had his eye on you. Nobody likes it, the same as no one likes the way you’ve been shooting that bow of yours.” He glared at the wood shaft in Kyel’s hand with a look of wary contempt. Kyel found himself drawing the bow toward himself protectively, not liking the way the man was frowning at it one bit.
“What does it matter if I’m good with it? You’re good with cards.”
Traver just shook his head and rolled his eyes. Pushing Kyel into a corner of the room, he waggled his finger and told him, “You know there’s a difference. No one picks up something like a longbow and hits the mark dead center every time after a week’s worth of practice. I’m telling you now, Archer. You need to start missing the mark. Do you know what I’m saying? And stay clear of the mage.”
He started to turn away, but stopped himself, glancing back over his shoulder. “And whatever you do, no more funny things out of your mouth, eh? You’re in enough trouble as it is already.”
Kyel stared after him as Traver made his way back toward the game through clusters of men and weapons. He looked down at his bow. The smooth golden yew was the only possession he had left. Practicing with it was the only thing he wanted to do, the only thing he took any comfort in. He didn’t want to start missing the mark.
Let them think what they would, he decided as he started back toward the warmth of the fire. It didn’t matter what they thought; the next time he was at practice, he was going to shoot straight, no matter what Traver had told him.
Kyel threw himself down against the wall by the fire and drew the bow across his lap, fingering the gleaming chunk of quartz.
Darien shook his head in admiration as he stared at the enormous black gelding Craig was offering him. It was a Tarkendar, a massive, cold-blooded horse known as a destrier, bred specifically for combat and heavy enough to carry even a man in full battle plate. It was a prime example of the breed, from what Darien could tell. It had a high, arching neck and a long drape of fetlocks over its hooves. The gelding’s tail was carried high, and its enormous girth was as big as a heavy draft horse. The animal nickered as they approached, tossing its head and sending its long, glistening mane rippling over its back.
“I thought he was yours,” Darien commented wonderingly.
Craig grinned, offering a slight shrug. “Now he’s yours. There’s mine over there,” he added with no small amount of pride in his voice.
Darien turned toward a dappled gray stallion standing at the other side of the large paddock, its coat so silver it was almost white. It was another destrier, though Darien didn’t know the breed. Like the black, the gray stallion was a massive animal, just not quite so large and without the feathering. Its dark, wide-set eyes looked ferocious as the animal angled its head toward them, nostrils flaring as it scented the wind. It reminded Darien of a herd stallion, fiercely protective of its brood and wary of human contact.
Darien cocked an eyebrow, looking sidelong at Craig. “Think you can handle him?”
The captain chortled. “You know I can ride circles around you, Lauchlin. Or did you forget the last three races you lost to me? Just worry about keeping your seat on that black beast, and leave the cantankerous ones to me.”
“Oh, is that the way of it? If I remember correctly, that stallion of Jorin’s tossed you flat on your backside. I also seem to recall another ‘cantankerous’ animal that just about bit your arm off when you—”
He had to duck as Craig’s arm swiped out to clap him. Darien shook his head, taking a step back and saying, “There’s only one sure way to resolve this, you know.”
Craig nodded, a smug glint in his narrow blue eyes. “Why else do you think I brought you down here?”
“Traitor’s Gulch?”
“The gulch.” Craig agreed.
They saddled the horses, and Craig was already kicking his stallion into a gallop before they were even out the gate. Darien’s horse saw Craig’s mount surging forward and lit after it, gaining speed faster than he would have ever given the massive animal credit for. He rode low in the saddle, gripping the horse’s mane in his hands and urging it faster as they tore up the dark sands of a low hill behind the paddock. Ahead of him, Craig broke sharply to the right, veering up the rise.
Darien squeezed
his leg into his horse’s side and was pleased at the way the black gelding swept gracefully into the turn. The horse was battle-trained, and responded just as easily to direction from its rider’s legs as it did to the feel of the reins on its neck. A well-trained destrier was as much a weapon as its rider’s sword, taught to lunge out and attack on command.
They cleared the canyon on the other side of the hill and took a steep path that bent upward behind the keep. Darien directed the warhorse over the furrow of a gully, cutting short the wide turn Craig was making around it. He could feel the animal gathering itself for the jump, hurling forward into the air and landing smartly, never missing a stride. As they dropped down into the next ravine, he looked over his shoulder and discovered that he was now in the lead.
But the gray charger was quickly gaining. Looking back, he could see Craig pressing his horse faster with the heels of his boots, coaxing the animal to greater speed. As they swept down into the narrow entrance to Traitor’s Gulch, Craig drew up beside him and the two horses labored neck-and-neck. Darien drew back on the reins, drawing his horse up in a wide, circling lope, then eased it back to a trot. Craig pulled his horse up beside him with a broad grin on his bearded face, breathing almost as hard his mount. His cheeks were flushed from the stinging wind of the ride.
“I thought you’d had me there for a minute,” he said. “I almost regret giving you that horse.”
“He’s quick,” Darien agreed, reaching down to stroke the animal’s glistening neck. “Yours is quicker, though.”
Darien studied Craig’s mount with new appreciation. It was deceptively fast for its strong build, a perfect mount for the captain’s style of fighting. Craig was the kind of swordsman who never let his opponent set the pace of any bout. He was one of the best Darien knew, almost as good as Royce, who was a Guild blademaster.
They walked the horses the rest of the way up to the top of the Gulch, where there was a flat-topped ridge uniquely situated to offer a singular view of the bottom of the pass. On good days it also allowed a glimpse of the Black Lands below the sharp, jutting peak known as the Spire of Orguleth. There, they dismounted and walked together toward the edge of the ridge. Darien looked down at the sweeping view of the pass encased by the jagged panorama of the Shadowspears. But the day was as dark as any of them, and a layer of haze clung to the sides of the mountains. The Black Lands were veiled from sight.
“They’re down there,” Craig murmured, eyes intent on the bottom of the pass, as if by sheer force of will he could make his sight bore through the layer of fog and detect the movements of the Enemy.
Darien nodded somberly. Enhanced as his senses were by the play of the magic field about him, he was incapable of seeing through the thick cloud of haze that groped up the walls of the canyons below. The field itself felt a little strange, almost timid. He reached out with his mind, tasting the flow of the lines of magic. The touch of it made his skin itch and prickle. He couldn’t place the sensation, but he could tell that there was something oddly out of sorts, something just not right.
Craig asked, “Remember that bloke in Wolden who came at you with a knife?”
Darien turned toward him sharply, taken aback by the sudden change of topic. But then he had to laugh when he saw the expression on Craig’s face.
“I was drunk,” he reminded his friend. Craig had taken him on a supply run down to Wolden, a town at the bottom of the pass where Greystone purchased most of its provisions. They had found a taproom and had together succeeded at getting admirably drunk in an incredibly short period of time. The bloke Craig was referring to was a regular of the establishment who had initially been put off by the sight of his black cloak. But once he had gleaned from somewhere that Darien was only an acolyte, the man had lit into him with such a steady stream of raw insults that Darien had backhanded the man across the face. The next thing he remembered was the gleam of a knife coming at him through an amber haze of drink. He was just fortunate that Craig hadn’t been too intoxicated to disarm the man.
“That was probably the last time you’ve gotten yourself good and sotten, wasn’t it?” Craig asked, then winked, admitting, “I lied to Proctor. The Queen of Emmery sent a little something extra with that goat swill you had the other night. I’ve got it stashed in my saddlebag.”
Darien found himself chuckling, closing his eyes and shaking his head. The man was insane. Aerysius and all it stood for was destroyed, the Enemy was massing right beneath their feet under that obscure cover of fog, and the entire South was blithely going on about its business as if oblivious to the fact that the entire might of the Black Lands was preparing to sweep down on top of it. As if that wasn’t enough, Devlin Craig wanted to get him drunk again.
“Let’s have at it,” Darien decided. If the Queen of Emmery was willing to provide, then he was game. But what he would have liked much better from the woman was something in the way of real reinforcements and provisions instead of rotten convicts and bad liquor.
Craig scowled roguishly and fetched two sacks of mead from his gray’s saddlebags. They had no cups, so Darien lifted the wineskin to his lips and took a thirsty gulp that made him choke when he swallowed it.
“Gods, this is really bad,” he muttered, but that didn’t prevent him from chasing the draught with a second. He could feel the effects of the mead almost immediately as it hit his stomach. It might be more goat swill, but at least it was strong. After a few more gulps he could feel the strange hesitance of the magic field even out around him, mellowing with his senses, and finally giving way all together.
It was a common wife’s tale that mages seldom drank because they couldn’t hold their liquor. The truth was, they seldom indulged because strong drink diminished the perception of the field. But at that moment, Darien didn’t care. The mead soothed his mind, calming his restless thoughts. He finished his sack before Craig, and was rewarded with yet another. He tilted his head back for another healthy draught, but then thought better of it and offered the mead back, instead.
It was useless. No matter how drunk his old friend could get him, no amount of mead would fill the gaping hole inside that had once been filled by a woman named Meiran.
Darien stared down at the fog in the lowlands, cursing his brother’s soul.
Garret Proctor looked out from the battlements at the top of Greystone’s tower, Sutton Royce at his side, staring off in the direction of Traitor’s Gulch. He had seen the two destriers racing headlong up the ridge of the mountain behind the keep, one black as dawn in the pass, the other a silvery-gray so muted it was almost a shimmering white.
“Have you spoken with him again?” Proctor wondered of Royce.
The captain nodded, his hand clenching the baldric of the greatsword strapped at his back. “He refuses to forsake the Oath. You know Darien; once he’s got his mind set, even a supreme act of the gods won’t change his course.”
It was Proctor’s turn to nod. The man was just as arrogantly intemperate as his father had been. It was that same overconfidence that had gotten Gerald Lauchlin tied to a wooden stake.
Sometimes, in his nightmares, he was still haunted by the sound of the man’s dying screams.
Chapter Eleven
The Breaking Storm
A VIOLENT GUST seized Darien’s unbound hair, playing it out behind him and tossing dark strands forward into his face, whipping them into his eyes. His cloak made crackling noises that sounded like a fraying banner as it was lifted away from him and billowed by the gale. He turned his face slightly into the wind until the wisps of hair blew out of his eyes, liberating his vision. Then he let his gaze wander upward toward the swiftly-moving bank of stormclouds that raced above the black spikes of the Shadowspears. Strange lights flickered inside them, seeming to emanate from deep within the dark cavities of the clouds. A forked tongue of lightning flared, licking upward from the ground.
Darien felt ill at ease tonight on the crenellated battlements at the top of Greystone’s high tower. He stood with a han
d resting on the rough stone wall, looking out through the opening of an embrasure. He used to come here often just to think, to gaze out over the distances and sense the currents of the night. Under the right conditions, he could sometimes see all the way down to the mouth of the pass, and even out across the distant wastes of the Black Lands beyond. Tonight was such a night. The gale-force winds were rampant, eliminating any chance that fog or haze might obscure his view. The Black Lands unfolded beneath him, revealed in their naked desecration, flowing out from the foothills like a dark sea to the gloom of the northern horizon.
He reached out from within to gain a sense of the swirling tides of the magic field around him. It felt different tonight, worse even than yesterday, like slick rivulets of quicksilver draining down off the slopes of the mountain peaks, rushing in unbridled currents toward the lowlands beyond. There was nothing timid about it, now. He could feel eddies of power twisting around him, skirling, almost like the unrestrained currents that surrounded Aerysius. But Darien knew there was no vortex anywhere nearby; the closest was to the south at the edge of the Cerulian Plains, with a focus at Orien’s Finger. There was no good reason tonight for the field to be surging so wild and unchecked.
He started thinking of the bad reasons. Just as he had on the day he’d arrived home, Darien felt certain there was a storm brewing in the air. Only, this time he did not dismiss the ominous foreboding as he had that morning in the Vale. He knew better, now, to trust the feelings that came to him, delivered on the prevailing tides of magic that moved within him. He was no longer an acolyte. He no longer had the luxury of mistrusting his own mind.
Turning away from the battlements, he climbed down the wooden ladder back into the sheltered warmth of Proctor’s quarters at the top of the tower. He made his way over to the map on the wall, for the hundredth time tracing his finger over the faded markings. But still, nothing made sense. Darien tapped his finger absently on the yellowed chart as he paused in thought, then slowly traced a line across the map to the smudge that indicated the mouth of Lor-Gamorth. Then, slowly, he drew a line upward, about an inch, his finger pausing under the small letters that spelled the word Orguleth. As he figured the numbers in his mind, his finger traced out the path of his rough triangulation across a frayed fold in the paper, out into the blank emptiness north of the of mountain pass. His hand paused then, the edge of his fingertip poised under the only mark in that entire void of uncharted area. It was an arrow, pointing toward the upper-right corner of the map. Underneath the arrow were inscribed the words, To Bryn Calazar.
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